With the growing number of people using social media sites each and every day, adding social media into your blood donor recruitment strategy is a great way to bring in new donors, especially younger ones. How can you use social media to bring in new donors? Here are four easy steps to get you started right away:

Join Facebook and Twitter! The first step is to take the leap, and join social media sites. Create a page for your blood center on Facebook and have a Twitter handle created for your center, as well.

Ask donors, staff, friends, etc. to like and follow you. Once you have joined the social world, let everyone one know. Email your employees with links to your social sites, and encourage them to join. Have signs created, and place them around the office, donor center, etc. Have staff members inform every donor that steps into the donor center to like the blood center on Facebook and follow them on Twitter.

Share updates. Once you are on and starting to gather a following, make sure to engage with your audience. Share updates about what is happening around the donor center. Share donor stories. Share when donors are making milestone donations. Share patient stories. Also, upload photos of staff, the donation process, what happens around the office, etc. Encourage donors to take pictures of themselves donating, and upload them to Facebook or Twitter, making sure to tag the blood center in the post.

Finally, repeat! To stay relevant on social media you have to stay current. Make sure you are providing updates daily so your followers don’t forget about you.

Using these four easy steps will help get you started on social media and help bolster the success of your blood donor recruitment strategy by working to bring in more donors! Try these tips and watch your results increase!

What tips do you have to a blood center looking to get started on social media?